VAYECHI Ostrich Minds and Captured Hearts

Every sidra in the Sefer Torah is demarcated from its neighbouring one by either a petukha or setuma, an ‘open’ space in paragraphing format or a ‘closed’ gap equivalent to the space taken up by nine letters. With one exception. Prior to the start of our Torah reading we find just a token gap amounting to barely the space of a single letter. Why?

Rashi sheds light on the matter. The gap is closed off, he says, le-fi she-keivan she-niftar Yaakov Avinu nistemu eineihem ve-libom shel Yisrael mi-tsarat ha-shibud. The general understanding of this Rashi is that with the demise of Jacob the eyes and hearts (or minds) of the people were “closed”, i.e. deadened from – or because of – the bondage which began to take root. This state of being would appear similar to the kotser ruakh, the stress-related “shortness of breath” (Ex. 6:9) caused by the later slavery which prevented the people from listening to Moses.

I am troubled by this reading of the Rashi for the following reason: The previous Sidra, Vayyigash, ends: “Israel settled in Goshen, they took holdings [Rashi: they bought property] (the Midrash says that literally it means that the land captured – or gripped – them!) and they were fruitful and multiplied there” while the first verse of Vayyekhi states “And Jacob lived [contentedly] in Egypt seventeen years and the days of the years of Jacob’s life were 147” (Gen. 47:27-28).

If the hearts of the people were deadened, if their spirit was destroyed, it was only after the place where the two sidrot join. At that point the people were still intoxicated with Egypt, How appropriate then is a symbolic “closing off” here at the start? Not very, it seems!

I would like to suggest the following novel rendering of the Rashi which might resolve this issue without in any way violating his words. “The eyes and the hearts (or minds) of Israel were closed from (i.e. oblivious to) the impending slavery”.

A very different interpretation of Rashi’s words – but one that appears to harmonise with the verse introducing it. (We know that Rashi frequently seeks to connect the end of one sidra with the beginning of the next) The land gripped them! The nascent nation of Israel was in Egypt’s thrall. They had had it good there and could not believe it wouldn’t be this way for ever! Even with Jacob’s death, and as the oppression began to take root, they convinced themselves that this inhumanity was a temporary aberration. Precisely to convey this, the sidra is “closed” at its commencement.

Chillingly familiar? Tragically this is a scenario of which all who survived the Germany of the mid-1930s will be aware – as will any student of Jewish history, both modern and ancient.

In 370 BCE, 70 years after the Babylonian conquest of Judea, the Persian king Cyrus issued a proclamation to the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1:1-3). Not only that but –miracle of miracles – he returned all the vessels of the first Temple that Nebuchadnezzar had plundered (1:7-11). Yet only 42,360 Jews heeded the call (2:64). The rest had been bewitched by Babylon! As a result of this the small number of Jewish returnees were fair game for Samaritan bullying and false accusation (4:6) and construction was halted by royal fiat (4:23-24).

Very shortly afterwards, Ahasuerus and Haman ascend to power in Persia and the Jews are very nearly destroyed. Those acculturated Jews who partook of the orgiastic feast that opens Megilat Esther (glatt kosher quite possibly, although the ambiance was not) were utterly gripped by Persia!

In 19^th century Germany, Berlin was declared by Reform Jewry “the new Jerusalem” (hence its designation of “Temple” to denote synagogue). Some traditional Jews were also entranced by Germany. Hence 70 or so years later on the cusp of Hitler’s rise to power many Jews were in ostrich-like denial about their future in Germany, Poland and neighbouring countries.

Incredibly today another 80 years on, in the wake of the Holocaust, some Jews still feel they have a future in these lands and are returning in droves. Rising levels of anti-Semitism throughout Europe are dismissed by those Jews who are gripped by their adopted countries.

Sadly anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism is now rife in Canada, and since the Simchat Torah massacre, even Australia isn’t the ultra-safe haven it once was.

\That most US Jews are gripped by America is certain. Yet a country that can have its social values so skewed that it places “the right to bear arms” (Second Amendment) above the safety of schoolchildren cannot, in my humble opinion, be a safe bet for Jews for ever.

We shall surely merit Mashiakh when we appreciate our historic destiny in our G‑D-given homeland more than we value our acculturated lifestyles in the foreign lands in whose thrall we are grasped.